Leo Strauss '' The Crisis Of Our Time'' [ 1963]

The Crisis of Our Time

LEOSTRAUSS

I am naturally moved by the kind remarks made about me, but
I would only like to make one brief comment. I am not as gentle
as my friends would like to present me; surely my enemies would agree
with me om that point. To come nearer to my subject, the two
lectures which I am supposed to give tonight and tomorrow are, in
fact, a single lecture, the theme of which is the crisis of our time
and the crisis of political philosophy. It would have been possible
to draw the line between the two lectures at very different points,
and perhaps I have not drawn it in the best way. So, I ask you
for your forgiveness if this lecture is fragmentary; it is meant to be
incomplete. ‘The subject is more precisely, “the crisis of our time
as a consequence of the crisis of political philosophy.”

The crisis of our time, which is the point I want to develop,
has its core in the doubt of what we can call “the Modern Project.”
That modern project was successful to a considerable extent. It, has
created a new kind of society, a kind of society that never was before.
But the inadequacy of the modern project, which has now become
a matter of general knowledge and of general concern, compels us
to entertain the thought that this new kind of society, our kind
of society, must be animated by a spirit other than that which has ani-
mated it from the beginning. Now this modern project was originated
by modern political philosophy, by the kind of political philosophy
which emerged in the 16th and 17th centuries. The end result of
modern political philosophy is the disintegration of the very idea of
political philosophy. For most political scientists today, political phi-
losophy is not more than ideology or myth.

We have to think of the restoration of political philosophy. We
have to go back to the point where the destruction of political phi-

4]

losophy began, to the beginnings of modern political philosophy, when
modern philosophy still had to fight against the older kind of political
philosophy, classical political philosophy, the political philosophy ori-
ginated by Socrates and elaborated above all by Aristotle. At that
time, the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns took place, which
is generally known only as a purely literary quarrel in France and
in England, the most famous document in England being Swift's
Battle of the Books. It was, in fact, not merely a literary quarrel.
It was fundamentally a quarrel between modern philosophy, or science,
and the older philosophy, or science. ‘The quarrel was completed only
with the work of Newton, which seemed to settle the issue entirely
in favor of the moderns. Our task is to reawaken that quarrrel,
now that the modern answer has been given the opportunity to reveal
its virtues and to do its worst to the old answer for more than three
centuries. In order to carry conviction, | must remain as close as
possible to what is today generally accepted in the West. I cannot
start from premises which today are agreed upon only by a fairly
small minority. In other words, I have to argue to a considerable
extent ad hominem. I hope this will not create a misunderstanding.

To avoid another kind of misunderstanding, I shall first give a
sketch of tonights lecture. The crisis of the West has been called
the decline of the West, in the sense of the final decline of men.
This view is not tenable, but one cannot deny that a decline, that
some decline, of the West has taken place. The West has declined
in power most obviously; its very survival is now threatened. ‘This
decline, however, does not constitute the crisis of the West. The
crisis of the West consists in the fact that the West has become
uncertain of its purpose. This purpose was the universal society,
a society consisting of equal nations, each consisting of free and!equal
men and women, with all these nations to be fully developed as
regards their power of production, thanks to science. Science to be
understood as essentially in the service of human power, for the relief
of man’s estate. Science would bring about universal affluence. A state
in which no one would have any longer any motive for encroaching
on other men or on other nations. Universal affluence would lead
to the universal and perfectly just society, as a perfectly happy society.

Many Western men have become doubtful of this project by the
self-revelation of Communism as immensely powerful and as radically
antagonistic to the Western notion of how this universal and just
society should be established and managed. The antagonism between
the West and Communism leads to the consequence that no possi-
bility of a universal society exists in the foreseeable future. Political
society remains for the foreseeable future what it always has been,
particular society, society with frontiers, a closed society, concerned

, with self-improvement. This experience which we have had requires,

42

however, not only a political reorientation, but also a reorientation of
our thoughts regarding principles.

I mention here three points. First, is this particularism, or dif-
ferently stated, this patriotism, not in itself better than universalism
or globalism? Second, is it reasonable to expect justice and happiness
as a necessary consequence of affluence? Is affluence even a neces-
sary, although not a sufhcient, condition of virtue and happiness? Is
there not some truth in the notion of voluntary poverty? Is even
involuntary poverty an insurmountable obstacle to virtue and hap-
piness? And third, is the belief that science is essentially in the
service of human power not a delusion, and even a degrading delusion?
Now, let me begin. :

The assertion that we are in the grip of a crisis is hardly in need
of proof. Every day’s newspapers tell us of another crisis, and all
these little daily crises can easily be seen to be parts, or ingredients,
of the one great crisis, the crisis of our time. The core of that crisis,
I submit, consists in the fact that what was originally a political phi-
losophy has turned into an ideology. That crisis was diagnosed at
the end of World War I by Spengler as a going down or decline
of the West. Spengler understood by the West one culture among
a small number of high cultures. But the West was for him more
than one high culture among a number of them. It was for him
the comprehensive culture, the only culture which had conquered the
earth. Above all, it was the only culture which was open to all
cultures, which did not reject the other cultures as forms of barbarism,
or tolerate them condescendingly as underdeveloped. It is the only
culture which has acquired full consciousness of culture as such. Whereas
culture originally meant the culture of the human mind, the derivative
and modern notion of culture necessarily implies that there is a variety
of equally high cultures. But, precisely since the West is the culture
in which culture reaches full self-consciousness, it is the final culture;
the owl of Minerva begins its flight in the dusk. ‘The decline of the
West is identical with the exhaustion of the very possibility of high
culture. The highest possibilities of man are exhausted. But men’s
highest possibilities cannot be exhausted as long as there are still high
human tasks, as long as the fundamental riddles which confront man
have not been solved to the extent to which they can be solved. We
may, therefore, say — appealing to the authority of science in our age —
that Spengler’s analysis and prediction is wrong. Our highest authority,
natural science, considers itself susceptible of infinite progress. And
this claim does not make sense, it seems, if the fundamental riddles
are solved. If science is susceptible of infinite progress, there cannot.
be a meaningful end or completion of history. There can only be
a brutal stopping of man’s onward march through natural forces acting
by themselves or directed by human brains and hands.

However this may be, in one sense Spengler has proved to be

43

right. Some decline of the West has taken place before our eyes.
In 1913, the West — in fact, this country together with Great Britain
and Germany — could have laid down the law for the rest of the
earth without firing a shot. For at least a half century, the West
controlled the whole globe with ease. ‘Today, so far from ruling the
globe, the West’s very survival is endangered by the East, as it has
not been since the beginning. From the Communist Manifesto, it
would appear that the victory of Communism would be the complete
victory of the West, of the synthesis which transcends the national
boundaries of British industry, French revolution, and German phi-
losophy, or with the East. We see that the victory of Communism
would, indeed, mean the victory of originally Western natural science,
but, at the same time, the victory of the most extreme form of Eastern
despotism. However much the power of the West may have de-
clined, however great the dangers to the West may be, that decline,
that danger — nay, the defeat and the destruction of the West —
would not necessarily prove that the West is in a crisis. The West
could go down in honor, certain of its purpose.

The crisis of the West consists in the West having become
uncertain of its purpose. The West was once certain of its purpose,
of a purpose in which all men could be united. Hence, it had
a clear vision of its future as the future of mankind. We no longer
have that certainty and that clarity. Some of us even despair of the
future. This despair explains many forms of contemporary Western
degradation. ‘This is not meant to imply that no society can be healthy
unless it is dedicated to a universal purpose, to a purpose in which
all men can be united. A society may be tribal and yet healthy. But
a society which was accustomed to understand itself in terms of a uni-
versal purpose cannot lose faith in that purpose without becoming com-
pletely bewildered. We find such a universal purpose expressly stated
in our immediate past; for instance, in famous official declarations made
during the two world wars. These declarations merely restate the
purpose stated originally by the most successful form of modern poli-
tical philosophy: a kind of that political philosophy which aspired to
build on the foundation laid by classical political philosophy, but in
opposition to the structure erected by classical political philosophy, a
society superior in truth and justice to the society toward which the
classics aspired.

According to that modern ‘project, philosophy or science was no
longer to be understood as essentially contemplative, but as active. It
was to be in the service of the relief of man’s estate, to use Bacon’s
beautiful phrase. It was to be cultivated for the sake of human power.
It was to enable man to become the master and the owner of nature
through the intellectual conquest of nature. Philosophy or science,
which was originally the same thing, should make possible progress
toward an ever greater prosperity. Thus, everyone would share in all

44

the advantages of society or life, and therewith make true the full
meaning of the natural right of everyone to comfortable self-preservation
(Locke’s phrase) and all that that right entails, and the natural right of
everyone to develop all his faculties fully, in concert with everyone
else’s doing the same. The progress toward. an ever greater prosperity
would thus become, or render possible, progress toward an ever greater
freedom and justice. This progress would necessarily be progress to-
ward a society embracing equally all human beings, a universal league
of free and equal nations, each nation consisting of free and equal men
and women. For it had come to be believed that the prosperous,
free, and just society in a single country, or in a few countries, is not
possible in the long run. To make the world safe for the Western
democracies, one must make the whole globe democratic, each country
in itself, as well as the society of nations. Good order in one country,
it was thought, presupposes good order in all countries and among all
countries. The movement toward the universal society, or the uni-
versal state, was thought to be guaranteed not only by the rationality,
the universal validity of the goal, but also because the movement toward
that goal seemed to be the movement of the large majority of men,
on behalf of the large majority of men. Only those small groups
of men, who hold in thrall many millions of their fellow human
beings and who defend their own antiquated interests, resist that
movement.

This view of the human situation in general, and of the situation
in our century in particular, retained a certain plausibility not in
spite of fascism, but because of it, until Communism revealed itself
even to the meanest capacities as Stalinism and post-Stalinism; for
Trotskyism, being a flag without an army, and even without a general,
was condemned or refuted by its own principle. For some. time, it
appeared to many teachable Westerners — to say nothing of the un-
teachable ones — that Communism was only a parallel movement
to the Western movement; as it were, a somewhat impatient, wild,
wayward twin who was bound to become mature, patient, and gentle.
But, except when in mortal danger, Communism responded to fraternal
greetings with contempt or, at most, with manifestly dissembled signs
of friendship, and when in mortal danger it was as eager to receive
Western help as it was determined to give no word of thanks in
return. It was impossible for the Western movement to understand
Communism as merely a new version of that external reaction against
which it had been fighting for centuries. It had to admit that the
Western project, which in its way had made provision against all
earlier forms of evil, could not provide against the new form in speech
or in deed. For some time, it seemed sufficient to say that while
the Western movement agrees with Communism regarding the goal
of the universal prosperous society of free and equal men and women,
it disagrees with it regarding the means. For Communism, the end,

45

the common good of the whole human race being the most sacred
thing, justifies any means. Whatever contributes to the achievement
of the most sacred end partakes of its sacredness and is, therefore,
itself sacred. Whatever hinders the achievement of that end is devilish.
The murder of Lumumba was described by a Communist as a re-
prehensible murder, by which he implied that there can be irrepre-
hensible murders, I suppose like the murder of Nagy.

It came to be seen, then, that there is not only a difference of
degree, but of kind, between the Western movement and Communism.
And this difference was seen to concern morality, the choice of
means. In other words, it became clearer than it had been for some
time that no bloody or unbloody change of society can eradicate the
evil in man. As long as there are men, there will be malice, envy,
and hatred; hence, there cannot be a society which does not have
to employ coercive restraints. For the same reason, it could no longer
be denied that Communism will remain as long as it lasts in fact
and not merely in name: the iron rule of a tyrant which is mitigated
or aggravated by its fear of palace revolutions. The only restraint
in which the West can put some confidence is the tyrant’s fear of
the West's immense military power.

The experience of Communism has provided the Western, move-
ment with a twofold lesson: a political lesson, a lesson regarding what
to expect and what to do in the foreseeable future, and a lesson re-
garding the principle of politics. For the foreseeable future, there
cannot be a universal state, unitary or federative. Apart from the
fact that there does not exist now a universal federation of nations,
but only one of those nations which are called peace-loving, the feder-
ation that does exist masks the fundamental cleavage. If that feder-
ation is taken too seriously, as a milestone of man’s onward march
toward the perfect and, hence, universal society, one is bound to take
great risks, supported by nothing but an inherited and perhaps an-
tiquated hope, and thus endanger the very progress one endeavors
to bring about. It is imaginable that in the face of the danger of
thermonuclear destruction, a federation of nations, however incom-
plete, would outlaw wars. ‘That is to say, wars of aggression. But
this means that it acts on the assumption that all present boundaries
are just, in accordance with the self-determination of nations. This
assumption is a pious fraud, the fraudulence of which is more evident
than its piety. In fact, the only changes of the present boundaries
which are provided for are those not disagreeable to the Communists.
One must also not forget the glaring disproportion between the legal
equality and the factual inequality of the confederates. This factual
inequality is recognized in the expression, “underdeveloped nations,”
an expression, I have been told, coined by Stalin. The expression
implies the resolve to develop them fully. That is to say, to make
them either Communist or Western. And this despite the fact that

46

the West claims to stand for cultural pluralism. Even if one could
still contend that the Western purpose is as universal as the Communist,
one must rest satished for the foreseeable future with a practical par-
ticularism. The situation resembles the one, as has often been said,
which existed during those centuries when both Christianity and Islam
each raised its claim, but each had to be satisfied with uneasily co-
existing with its antagonist. All this amounts to saying that for the
foreseeable future political society remains what it always has been:
a partial or particular society whose most urgent and primary task is
its self-preservation and whose highest task is its self-improvement,
As for the meaning of self-improvement, we may observe that the same
experience which has made the West doubtful of the viability of a
world society has made it doubtful of the belief that affluence is a
sufficient and even necessary condition of happiness and justice. Affluence
does not cure the deepest evils.

I must say a few words about another ingredient of the modern
project, and this needs a somewhat more detailed discussion. Very
briefly, we can say that the modern project was distinguished from the
earlier view by the fact that it implied that the improvement of society
depends decisively on institutions, political or economic, as distinguished
from the formation of character. An implication of this view was
the simple separation — as distinguished from a distinction — of law
from morality. Beyond positive law, there is a sphere of enlightenment
indeed; that is to say, of a purely theoretical education as distinguished
from moral education or formation of character. We may illustrate
this by the example of one of the heroes of that modern project, by
the example of Hobbes. Hobbes was, of course, not a simple absolutist
who was charmed by Nero and such people. Hobbes wanted to have
enlightened absolute sovereigns, “enlightened despots,” as they came
to be called. But his whole construction was of such a kind that he
guaranteed only the possibility and necessity of despotism. The en-
lightened character of the despot remained a mere matter of hope.

Now this situation is repeated in a different way in the develop-
ment of modern liberal democracy. Liberal democracy claims to be
responsible government, a political order in which the government is
responsible to the governed. The governed, of course, also have some
responsibility to the government; the governed are supposed to obey
the laws. But the key point is this: in order to be responsible, the
government must have no secrets from the governed. “Open covenants
openly arrived at” — the famous formula of President Wilson expresses
this thought most clearly. Of course, liberal democracy also means
limited government, the distinction between the public and the private.
Not only must the private sphere be protected by the law, but it must
also be understood to be impervious to the law. The laws must protect
the sphere in which everyone may act and think as he pleases, in which
he may be as arbitrary and prejudiced as he likes. “My home is my

47

castle.” But this is not simply true. My home is not simply my castle;
it may be entered with a search warrant. ‘The true place of secrecy
is not the home but the voting booth. We can say the voting booth
is the home of homes, the seat of sovereignty, the seat of secrecy.
The sovereign consists of the individuals who are in no way responsible,
who can in no way be held responsible: the irresponsible individual.
This was not simply the original notion of liberal democracy. ‘The
original notion was that this sovereign individual was a conscientious
individual, tre individual limited and guided by his conscience.

It is perfectly clear that the conscientious individual creates the
same difficulty as Hobbes’ enlightened despot. You cannot give a
legal definition of what constitutes the conscientious individual. You
cannot limit voting rights to conscientious people as you can limit
voting rights by property qualifications, literacy tests, and the like.
Conscientiousness can only be fostered by non-legal means, by moral
education. For this no proper provision is made, and the change in this
respect is well known to all of you. ‘This change which has taken
place and is still taking place may be called the decline of liberal
democracy into permissive egalitarianism. Whereas the core of liberal
democracy is the conscientious individual, the core of permissive egali-
tarianism is the individual with his urges. We only have to take the
case of the conscientious objector; whatever you may think of con-
scientious objectors, there is no doubt that they are people who are
perfectly willing to lay down their lives for something which they
regard as right. The man who wants to indulge his urges does not
have the slightest intention to sacrifice his life, and hence also his
urges, to the satisfaction of his urges. ‘This is the moral decline which
has taken p.ace.

Let me illustrate this great change by another example. I have
spoken at the beginning of this lecture of the concept of culture.
In its origiral meaning, it meant the culture of the human mind.
By virtue of a change which took place in the 19th century, it became
possible to speak of culture in the plural (the cultures). What has
been done on a grand scale, especially by Spengler, has been repeated
on a somewhat lower level, but with at least as great effect, by such
anthropologists as Ruth Benedict. What, then, does culture mean
today? In anthropology and in certain parts of sociology the word,
“culture,” is, of course, always used in the plural, and in such a way
that you have a culture of suburbia, a culture of juvenile gangs, non-
delinquent end even delinquent. And you can say, according to this
recent notion of culture, there is not a single human being who is not
cultured because he belongs to a culture. At the same time, fortunately,
the older notion is still maintained; when I made this remark some
of you laughed, because when we speak of a cultured human being
we still imply that not all human beings are cultured or possess culture.
Looking forward to the end of the road, one can say that according

48

to the view now prevailing in the social sciences every human being
who is not an inmate of a lunatic asylum is a cultured human being.
At the frontiers of research, of which we hear so much today, we find
the interesting question whether the inmates of lunatic asylums also
do not have a culture of their own.

Let me now return to my argument. The doubt of the modern
project, which is today quite widespread, is not merely a strong but
vague feeling. It has acquired the status of scientific exactitude. One
may wonder whether there is a single social scientist left who would
assert that the universal and prosperous society constitutes the rational
solution of the human problem. For present-day social science admits
and even proclaims its inability to validate any value judgments proper.
The teaching originated by modern political philosophy, those heroes
of the 17th century, in favor of the universal and prosperous society
has admittedly become an ideology. ‘That is to say, a teaching not
superior in truth and justice to ‘any other among the innumerable
ideologies. Social science which studies all ideologies is itself free
from all ideological biases. ‘Through this Olympian freedom it over-
comes the crisis of our time. ‘That crisis may destroy the conditions
of social science; it cannot affect the validity of its findings. Social
science has not always been as skeptical or as restrained as it has
become during the last two generations. The change in the character
of social science is not unconnected with the change in the status
of the modern project. ‘The modern project was originated by phi-
losophers, and it was originated as something required by nature, by
natural rights. The project was meant to satisfy, in the most perfect
manner, the most powerful and natural needs of men. Nature was
to be conquered for the sake of man, who was supposed to possess
a nature, an unchangeable nature. he originators of the project took
it for granted that philosophy and science are identical. After some
time, it appeared that the conquest of nature requires the conquest of
human nature too and, in the first place, the questioning of the un-
changeability of human nature. After all, an unchangeable human
nature might set absolute limits to progress. Accordingly, the natural
needs of men could no longer direct the conquest of nature. The
direction had to come from reason as distinguished from nature, from
the rational “Ought” as distinguished from the neutral “Is.” Thus,
philosophy, logic, ethics, aesthetics, as the study of the “Ought” or
the norms, became separated from science as the study of the “Is.”
While the study of the “Is,” or science, succeeded ever more in increasing
man’s power, the ensuing discredit of reason precluded distinction
between the wise, or right, and the foolish, or wrong, use of power.
Science, separated from philosophy, cannot teach wisdom. ‘There are
still some people who believe that this predicament will disappear as
soon as social science and psychology have caught up with physics and
chemistry. ‘This belief is wholly unreasonable. For social science and

49

psychology, however perfected, being sciences, can only bring about
a still further increase of man’s power. They will enable man to
manipulate men still better than ever before. ‘They will as little teach
man how to use his power over men or non-men as physics and
chemistry do. The people who indulge this hope have not grasped
the bearing of the distinction between facts and values, which they
preach all the time. This is, indeed, the core of modern science, of
modern social science as it has finally developed in the last two gener-
ations: the distinction between facts and values, with the understanding
that no distinction between good or bad values is rationally possible.
Any end is as defensible as any other. From the point of view of
reason, all values are equal. The task with which academic teachers
in the social sciences are concerned is primarily to face this issue posed
by the fact-value distinction. I believe that one can show that this
fundamental premise of the present-day social sciences is untenable,
and that one can show it on a variety of grounds. But I am now con-
cerned with a somewhat broader issue.

When we reflect on the fact-value distinction, we see one element
of it which is quite striking. ‘The citizen does not make the fact-
value distinction. He is as sure that he can reasonably distinguish
between good and bad, just and unjust, as he can distinguish between
true and false, or as he can judge so-called factual statements. ‘The
distinction between facts and values is alien to the citizen’s under-
standing of political things. The distinction between facts and values
becomes necessary, it seems, only when the citizen’s understanding
of political things is replaced by the specifically scientific understanding.
The scientific understanding implies, then, a break with the pre-
scientific understanding. Yet, at the same time, it remains dependent
on the pre-scientific understanding. I may illustrate this by a most
simple example. If someone is sent out by a sociology department to
interview people, he is taught all kinds of things; he is given very
detailed instructions. But one thing he is not told: address your
questions to people, to human beings, and not to dogs, trees, cats,
and soon. Furthermore, he is not even told how to tell human beings
from dogs. This knowledge is presupposed. It is never changed,
never refined, never affected by anything he learns in social science
classes. This is only the most massive example of how much allegedly
self-sufficient scientific knowledge presupposes of “a priori” knowledge,
of pre-scientific knowledge which is not questioned for one moment
in the whole process of science. Now, regardless of whether the
superiority of the scientific understanding to the pre-scientific under-
standing can be demonstrated or not, the scientific understanding is
surely secondary or derivative. Hence, social science cannot reach
clarity about its doings if it does not dispose of a coherent and com-
prehensive understanding of what one may call the common sense
understanding of political things which precedes all scientific under-

50

standing; in other words, if we do not primarily understand political
things as they are experienced by the citizen or statesman. Only if
it disposes of such a coherent and comprehensive understanding of
its basis or matrix can it possibly show the legitimacy and make in-
telligible the character of that peculiar modification of the primary
understanding of political things which is the scientific understanding.
This, I believe, is an evident necessity if social science or political
science is to be or to become a rational enterprise.. Being a modifica-
tion of the primary understanding of political things, it must be
understood as such a modification. We must understand the pre-scien-
tific, the common sense understanding, the citizen’s understanding of
political things before we can truly understand what the modification
effected by scientific understanding means.

But how can we get that understanding? How can our poor
powers be sufhcient for an elaboration of the pre-scientific primary
citizens’ understanding of political things? Fortunately for us, this
terrific burden, the most basic work which can be done and must
be done in order to make political science and, therefore, also the
other social sciences truly sciences, rational enterprises, has been done.
As in a way every one of you knows, it has been done by Aristotle
in his Politics. ‘That work supplies us with the classic and unforgettable
analysis of the primary understanding of political phenomena.

This assertion is exposed to a very great variety of seemingly devas-
tating objections. I shall devote tomorrow’s political lecture to a pre-
sentation of what this enterprise, Aristotelian political science, means.
I would like to devote the rest of this lecture to a strict ad hominem
argument in order to lead, as it were, the now preponderant part in
the profession, the so-called behavioralists, if they are willing to listen
to an argument, to a somewhat better understanding of what they
would do if they were well advised. When you look around yourself,
not at the University of Detroit, not at other Catholic institutions,
but at non-Catholic institutions, I think you can say that with very
few exceptions political philosophy has disappeared. Political phi-
losophy, the decay of political philosophy into ideology, reveals itself
today most obviously in the fact that in both research and teaching
political philosophy has been replaced by the history of political phi-
losophy. Many of you have read or used the famous work by Sabine,
and you only have to read the preface of Sabine to see that what
I am going to say is simply correct. Now, what does this substitution
of the history of political philosophy for political philosophy mean?
It is, strictly speaking, absurd to replace political philosophy by the
history of political philosophy. It means to replace a doctrine which
claims to be true by a survey of errors, and that is exactly what Sabine,
for example, does. So, political philosophy cannot be replaced by
the history of political philosophy.

5l

The discipline which takes the place of political philosophy is the
one which shows the impossibility of political philosophy, and that
discipline is, of course, logic. What, for the time being, is still
tolerated under the name, “history of political philosophy,” will find
its place within a rational scheme of research and teaching in foot-
notes to the chapters in logic textbooks which deal with the distinction
between factual judgments and value judgments. These footnotes
will supply slow learners with examples of the faulty transition by
which political philosophy stands or falls, from factual judgments to
value judgments. They will give examples from Plato, Aristotle, Locke,
Hume, or Rousseau and will show when and where these famous men
committed a blunder which every ten-year-old child now knows how
to avoid. Yet, it would be wrong to believe that in the new dispen-
sation, according to the demands of logical positivism or behaviorial
science, the place once occupied by political philosophy is filled entirely
by logic, however enlarged. A considerable part of the matter formerly
treated by political philosophy is now treated by non-philosophic po-
litical science, which forms part of social science. ‘This new political
science is concerned with discovering laws of political behavior and,
ultimately, universal laws of political behavior. Lest it mistake the -
peculiarities of the politics of the times and the places in which
social science is at home for the character of all politics, it must study
also the politics of other climes and other ages. The new political
science thus becomes dependent upon a kind of study which belongs
to the comprehensive enterprise called universal history. Now, it is
controversial whether history can be modeled on the natural sciences
or not, and, therefore, whether the aspiration of the new political science
to become scientific in the sense of the natural sciences is sound.

At any rate, the historical studies in which the new political
science must engage must become concerned not only with the workings
of institutions, but with the ideologies informing these institutions as
well. Within the context of these studies, the meaning of an ideology
is primarily the meaning in which its adherents understand it. In some
cases, the ideologies are known to have been originated by outstanding
men. In these cases, it becomes necessary to consider whether and
how the ideology as conceived by the originator was modihed by its
adherents. For, precisely, if only the crude understanding of ideologies
can be politically effective, it is necessary to grasp the characteristics of
crude understanding. If what they call the routinization of charisma
is a permitted theme, the vulgarization of thought ought to be a per-
mitted theme also. One kind of ideology consists of the teachings
of the political philosophers. ‘These teachings may have played only
a minor political role, but one cannot know this before one knows
these doctrines solidly. This solid knowledge consists primarily in
understanding the teachings of the political philosophers as they them-
selves meant them. Surely, every one of them was mistaken in be-

a2

lieving that his teaching was a sound teaching regarding political things.
Through a reliable tradition we know that this belief forms part of
a rationalization, but the process of rationalization is not so thoroughly
understood that it would not be worthwhile to study it in the case
of the greatest minds. For all we know, there may be various kinds
of rationalizations, etc., etc. It is, then, necessary to study the political
philosophies, not only as they were understood by their originators, in
contradistinction to the way in which they were understood by their
adherents and various kinds of their adherents, but also by their ad-
versaries and even by detached or indifferent bystanders or historians.
For indifference does not offer a sufficient guarantee against the danger
that one identifies the view of the originator with a compromise be-
tween the views of his adherents and those of his adversaries. The
general understanding of the political philosophies which is then ab-
solutely necessary on the basis of behavioral political science may be
said to have been rendered possible today by the shaking of all tra-
ditions; the crisis of our time may have the accidental advantage of
enabling us to understand in an untraditional, a fresh, manner what
was hitherto understood only in a traditional, derivative manner.

Social science, then, will not live up to its claim if it does not
concern itself with the genuine understanding of the political phi-
losophies proper, and therewith, primarily because it comes first, of
classical political philosophy. As I indicated, such an understanding
cannot be presumed to be available. It is sometimes asserted today that
such an understanding is not even possible because all historical under-
standing is relative to the point of view of the historian, his country,
his time. The historian cannot understand, it is said, the teaching
as it was meant by its originator, but he necessarily understands it
differently than its originator understood it. Ordinarily, the historian’s
understanding is inferior to the originator’s understanding. In the
best case, the understanding will be a creative transformation of the
original teaching. Yet, it is hard to see how one can speak of the
creative transformation of the original teaching if it is not possible
to grasp the original teaching as such.

Be this as it may, the following point seems to be of crucial im-
portance. To the extent to which the social scientist succeeds in this
kind of study, which is required of him by the demands of his own
science, he not only enlarges the horizon of present-day social science;
he even transcends the limitations of that social science. For he learns
to look at things in a manner which is, as it were, forbidden to the
social scientist. He will have learned from his logic that his science
rests on certain hypotheses, certainties, or assumptions. He learns now
to suspend these assumptions because, as long as he maintains them,
he has no access to his subject matter. He is thus compelled to make
the assumptions of social science his theme. Far from being merely
one of the innumerable themes of social science, history of political

53

philosophy, and not logic, proves to be the pursuit concerned with
the presuppositions of social science. ‘These presuppositions prove to
be modifications of the principles of modern political philosophy, which,
in their turn, prove to be modifications of the principles of classical
political philosophy. ‘To the extent to which a behavioral political
scientist takes his science and its requirements seriously, he is compelled
to engage in such a study, in such a historical study of his own disci-
pline, and he cannot conduct that study without questioning the
dogmatic premises of his own science. ‘Therewith, his horizon is en-
larged. He must at least consider the possibility that the older political
science was sounder and truer than what is regarded as political science
today.

Such a return to classical political philosophy is both necessary
and tentative or experimental. Not in spite, but because it is tentative,
it must be carried out seriously; that is to say, without squinting at
our present-day predicament. ‘There is no danger that we can ever
become oblivious of this predicament, since that predicament is the
incentive to our whole concern with the classics. We cannot reasonably
expect that a fresh understanding of classical political philosophy will
supply us with recipes for today’s use. The relative success of modern
political philosophy has brought into being a kind of society wholly
unknown to the classics, a kind of society in which the classical princi-
ples as stated and elaborated by the classics are not immediately
applicable. Only we living today can possibly find a solution to the
problems of today. An adequate understanding of the principles, as
elaborated by the classics, may be the indispensable starting point for
an adequate analysis, to be achieved by us, of present-day society in
its peculiar character, and for the wise application, to be achieved by
us, of these principles to our tasks.

RA